Sarah Kessler, The New York Times; Harvard’s A.I. Clones Will Hear Your Start-Up Pitch Now
To create a new $699 bootcamp for entrepreneurs, Harvard Business School made A.I. versions of its faculty.
"Bussgang is one of several teachers at Harvard Business School who volunteered to help create A.I. clones of themselves for a new eight-week entrepreneurship boot camp called H.B.S. Foundry. Harvard has tested the product, which costs $699, with more than 100 universities across 50 states.
Foundry guides participants through a framework for starting a company, from refining the idea to pitching it to investors and customers. Along with Harvard Business School content, its virtual work space includes a community of peers and access to A.I. agents — some intended to “represent” instructors. It also features video call simulations for practicing pitches, sales calls and board meetings with instructor A.I. avatars, like the one of Bussgang.
Experienced founders, investors, and Harvard Business School faculty lead weekly live sessions, but the purpose of the online portal is to guide students through A.I. resources and content from the business school for building a start-up.
The school aims to use Foundry to scale the school’s offerings far beyond the 900 or so M.B.A. students it admits each year. In that way, it is something of a case study for companies facing a similar problem: Consulting firms like PWC, law firms and, at least in one case, a church, are also experimenting with how A.I. can expand their services far beyond their human bandwidth. So are some movie directors — an A.I. version of the actor Val Kilmer, who passed away in 2025, recently appeared in the historical drama “As Deep as the Grave.”"
